Ex-players say teams’ use of painkillers broke drug laws

Documents unsealed in a lawsuit by 1,800 former NFL players provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse at how team and league medical personnel plied players with powerful painkillers for years, often in apparent violation of federal drug laws.

The lawsuit being heard by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup in the northern district of California has been moving through the court system for more than two years. Alsup ruled last July to begin discovery, allowing plaintiffs’ lawyers to interview potential witnesses and gather documents such as e-mails and memos from the teams related to the case.

The documents appear to show a cavalier attitude toward the storage, transport and distribution of controlled substances, as well as prescription medicines, which the lawsuit contends were often obtained illegally.

“Here is week 17’s fiasco,” began a Jan. 17, 2008 e-mail from Minnesota Vikings head trainer Eric Sugarman to team doctors and medical personnel. “The following items did not match up this week . ... ”

His e-mail goes on to detail how medications like Ambien, a sedative, and Toradol, a post-surgical painkiller, were distributed to players and not accurately tracked by the team’s dispensing records.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in an email to The Washington Post , which obtained a copy of the documents before they were unsealed, that the “clubs and their medical staffs are all in compliance with the Controlled Substances Act . ... Any claim or suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong.”